Tom Perrotta

“the big day hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped, not that big days ever did. Birthdays,”

— Tom Perrotta

It's not the cheating. It's the hunger for an alternative. The refusal to accept unhappiness.

— Tom Perrotta

“These days he was like a zombie, all grim business, just another jerk with an erection.”

— Tom Perrotta

“I’ve matured. I have a much higher tolerance for boredom.”

— Tom Perrotta

It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.

— Tom Perrotta

“It’s like the Stone Age over there, just sand and rubble and IEDs.”

— Tom Perrotta

“He knew for a fact that it was possible to fall and just keep falling.”

— Tom Perrotta

“I’m only human, she told herself. There’s not enough room in my heart for everyone.”

— Tom Perrotta

He made me think of all the books I hadn't read, and all the ones I'd read but hadn't fully understood.

— Tom Perrotta

“Kissing her just then felt perfectly normal and completely self-explanatory, the only possible course of action.”

— Tom Perrotta

“When your words are futile, you’re better off keeping them to yourself, or never even thinking them in the first place.”

— Tom Perrotta

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters,…

— Tom Perrotta

I read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story…

— Tom Perrotta

I did a lot of reading of the Bible and became fascinated with the idea of the Rapture. It's pretty wild. I…

— Tom Perrotta

“It’s a matter of dignity,” the Chief explained. “At a certain point, that’s all you have left.”

— Tom Perrotta

As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.

— Tom Perrotta

“All through that winter and into the spring, when our Tuesday and Thursday-night dinner shifts were done, Matt and I would sit…

— Tom Perrotta

You could say that this book is ripped from the headlines, but that wouldn't be fair. Bret Anthony Johnston's riveting novel picks…

— Tom Perrotta

“She felt strong and blissfully empty gliding through the crisp November air, enjoying the intermittent warmth of the sun as it filtered…

— Tom Perrotta

“No, it's just like when you're dead and you try to remember being alive, it'll be like thinking of winter on the…

— Tom Perrotta

“And of course they used her like a disposable object, without regret or apology, because that’s what privilege is—the license to treat…

— Tom Perrotta

“We’re agnostics, she used to tell her kids, back when they were little and needed a way to define themselves to their…

— Tom Perrotta

A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers…

— Tom Perrotta

Safe from the Neighbors is a novel of unusual richness and depth, one that's as wise about the small shocks within a…

— Tom Perrotta

“She was about to laugh at the selfishness of her reaction, but she was distracted by the cool evening air when she…

— Tom Perrotta

“Actually, he hadn’t just complained; she’d come home from school one afternoon and found him stabbing his paperback edition with a steak…

— Tom Perrotta

“Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There…

— Tom Perrotta

“she remained unreconciled to the loss of her electric toothbrush. She’d pined for it for weeks before realizing that it was more…

— Tom Perrotta

“Not that they would, but if any of the other mothers had asked how it was that Sarah, of all people, had…

— Tom Perrotta

Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer - that it was better…

— Tom Perrotta

“Yes, he was young—way too young, she was well aware of that unfortunate fact—but there was something to be said for youth,…

— Tom Perrotta

“us, Will had invited his camp counselor buddy, Dylan, and Dylan had brought along his roommate, this annoying kid named Sanjay. I…

— Tom Perrotta

“What about Clinton?" I asked. "He's pretty interesting."

— Tom Perrotta

“There was no dignified way to answer a question about your underwear.”

— Tom Perrotta

“We all basically live in a world that we define by the people who have disappeared.”

— Tom Perrotta

“As if adult males were completely self-sufficient beings, as if a penis and a five o’clock shadow were all they would ever…

— Tom Perrotta

“It was one thing to have a professor tell you that gender was socially constructed, and another to hear it from a…

— Tom Perrotta

I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to…

— Tom Perrotta

“And when Aaron called out for him just then, right on time, there was something beautiful about that, too, the way a…

— Tom Perrotta

“The thing was to wear a bathing suit and look good in it, to somehow make yourself worthy of the scenario you…

— Tom Perrotta